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Forum: Eltonian niche and functional diversity

One of this month's Editor's choice papers, which is also Forum paper, has the title "Bringing the Eltonian niche into functional diversity". The first author, Matthias Dehling sent us a photo....

This composite photo shows a Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) and an African Pied Hornbill (Lophoceros fasciatus) from the Central African Republic where the species occur together. Both species consume fruits and, hence, fulfill functional roles as seed dispersers. Their morphology, however, is very different, and they show different adaptations that allow them to handle fruits. Therefore, we cannot compare their functional roles by the adaptations manifested in their traits. Instead, we can compare their functional roles by comparing the traits of the fruits that the species consume.

Oikos Journal

Oikos is a journal issued by the Nordic Ecological Society and is one of the leading peer-reviewed journals in ecology. Oikos publishes original and innovative research on all aspects of ecology, defined as organism-environment interactions.